In Publicity Coup, Army of Journalists Accepted Free Trips to Disney World : Press Debates Ethics of Mickey Mouse Junket

NEW YORK —  He will be grand marshal of the Hollywood Christmas Parade. He was grand marshal of the Indianapolis 500. Dressed in his familiar little boy’s shorts, big shoes and bow tie, he frolicked and was photographed last month at the Great Wall of China after touring Australia and New Zealand.

Perennially happy, with his wide, innocent eyes and high, optimistic voice, he visited more than 120 U.S. cities last year alone, greeting mayors, TV talk show hosts, tourist industry executives, youngsters in hospitals and shoppers in department stores.

He is, of course, Mickey Mouse--one of America’s most enduring cartoon characters and, as he approaches his 58th birthday, a quintessential symbol of eternal youth.

Corporate Spokesman

But, nowadays, Mickey has another role as well. Working for a communications conglomerate that mixes theme parks, network and cable television, movies and high-powered consumer merchandising, he has become a potent corporate spokesman and the point man of the Walt Disney company’s aggressive emphasis on promotion.

Nowhere was Disney’s success at promotion more apparent than at the 15th anniversary of Florida’s Disney World early last month. There, amazingly, Mickey shared the stage with former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Nicholas Daniloff, the magazine correspondent who had been imprisoned by the KGB and then freed as part of a trade for a convicted Soviet spy.

On hand at the theme park were about 10,600 news media representatives and members of their families--most of whom had their travel and accommodations paid for by the Disney organization--enjoying one of the biggest press parties in history. And, when Daniloff, who had been greeted by President Reagan only two days before, made an emotional speech about freedom and the Bill of Rights, he provided reporters in the throng with a publicity coup rare for such a party--real news that was available nowhere else.

Controversy Continues

But, if the multimillion-dollar, four-day event combined marketing know-how and news management, it also cast Disney and Mickey on one side of a bitter debate over free junkets and the ethics of journalists--a controversy that continued well after the party was over.

“Whoever thought that Mickey Mouse would act like a Chicago alderman?” chided Mike Royko, the Chicago columnist, criticizing Walt Disney World for staging what could be the largest “freebie” in journalistic history.

“The biggest story from Florida was the way the press debased itself--and those who accepted Disney’s gifts were the most likely to miss it,” the New York Times editorialized.

“I am angered and disappointed that so many journalists would accept the offer,” added Michael G. Gartner, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal and president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, “and I guess that Disney knows more about the ethics of the press than I do.”

Issue Argued on Radio

Recently, Gartner and a radio talk show host in Florida who had accepted the free weekend engaged in an on-air argument. “I said I didn’t care if he took a free ticket,” Gartner said. “My quarrel is not with you, it’s with your bosses. My view is, if your bosses feel it’s worth covering, they should pay their way. My quarrel is not with Disney, it’s with people who took it.”

Although most larger papers, including the Los Angeles Times, did not attend at all or paid all their staff members’ expenses, there were journalists on both sides of the debate.

“I think it’s up to the newspapers themselves,” said Aline Jacobs, women’s editor of the Laconia Citizen in New Hampshire, who accepted Disney’s offer of free food, lodging and transportation. “The New York Times is a very big newspaper. We’re a small-town paper. Their budget is entirely different. I had the blessings of my publisher and her husband . . . . There were no qualms on their part.”

“I didn’t feel any pressure to write anything favorable,” said Paul Lacaillade, entertainment editor of the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader, whose trip also was paid for and who wrote two stories about Disney World. “I really didn’t give them a puff job.”

‘The Biggest Party’

“It was the biggest party I ever saw anybody throw, and that’s the way I look at it,” added Bill Lowe, news director of WHAM-FM in Rochester, N.Y. “ . . . I think a lot of people are looking for something sinister. But I didn’t see that.”

When the Disney company began planning--a year ago--for the big 15th anniversary party, the possibility of press criticism was weighed against the benefits to be gained by focusing massive media attention not only on Florida’s Disney World but on the company’s other businesses.

The approach was not new. When Disney World’s Epcot Center was opened in 1982, Disney brought 2,000 news and entertainment media members to Epcot in groups of 150 to 200 for three-day visits. The entertainment company paid the expenses of half of those who attended and paid for satellite facilities so reporters from 30 TV stations could broadcast live.

This time, the invitation stressed the size of the gathering. “You and a guest are invited to both enjoy and report on one of the most exciting and patriotic events ever conceived,” it said. “This celebration will be one of the largest gatherings of press representatives ever assembled and promises to be an unforgettable weekend.”

Erwin D. Okun, the Disney company’s vice president of corporate communications, defends the offer of free transportation and lodging. “Our view is that we know we’re not buying anything. We’re facilitating the press being there.

“(With) such rules (against) accepting a hotel room or accepting a trip from an airline, small papers could not cover, with their budgets, nor could the local radio station or small television station. We give people free tickets to the movies; it certainly doesn’t mean we get free reviews.

” . . . We used the number of press attending as a news peg. It was unnecessary. We exposed ourselves unnecessarily. There were disc jockeys, travel writers, talk show hosts. We did take some lumps, yes. But, in the long run, we are certainly pleased with the results we got there. It was a hell of a party.”

40 Hours on TV

By mixing entertainment, patriotism and news, Disney executives generated massive coverage. The result was hundreds of articles focusing on Orlando’s Walt Disney World as well as more than 1,000 hours of radio time and more than 40 hours of television coverage at stations around the nation.

The planners decided early to try to give the theme park’s birthday a hard news edge and approached the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation and the Constitution’s Bicentennial Commission to propose sending the Statue of Liberty’s original torch on a cross-country tour and then exhibiting it at Disney World’s Epcot Center. That proposal failed, however.

Disney then turned to the Constitution’s Bicentennial Commission in Washington. Thomas R. Elrod, the theme park’s vice president of marketing, traveled to Washington about a year ago to meet with commission members, including then Chief Justice Burger, but the response was at first noncommittal.

“Originally,” Elrod said, “there was some concern on the part of the Bicentennial Commission about getting involved with Disney, due to a complete ignorance of Disney and the Disney product. These were a group of intellectuals who had never, perhaps, gone to a Disney movie. There was a somewhat reluctant attitude. What they found was that Disney was a slice of America . . . .

“I tried to educate them about our product, our patriotic concern and our ability as marketers,” he continued. “It took several presentations and it took members of the commission coming down (to Florida). We took them through the parks. We showed them the presentations we had, and they got very excited and recommended it.

“Mickey is a slice of America, a symbol of happiness and a great little communicator. I think they realize all of those things could be an immense benefit to them in their mission to promote the Constitution.”

But, in contrast to the long effort to obtain Burger’s presence, the decision to try to get Daniloff to appear was made only two days before the event, on the day that he visited the White House.

Elrod and Jack Lindquist, executive vice president of marketing for Disney Attractions (the theme parks), were sitting in Disney World’s Diamond Horseshoe theater, watching a rehearsal of the Western variety show.

“We were just chatting about the party that was about to kick off, the tremendous reception we had from the media . . . “ Lindquist recalled. “We started chatting about a media representative who would sort of represent all the media. All of a sudden, it just occurred to me. I said to Tom, ‘I know just the person . . . .’ I said Mr. Daniloff is exactly what we were talking about.”

Called White House

Lindquist sprang from his chair, ran upstairs and called the White House.

“They said they couldn’t be of much help, as he was a private citizen,” Lindquist said. “I then spoke to people at U.S. News & World Report (Daniloff’s employer),” Elrod said. “I explained that he could talk to a large group of press representatives, journalists, disc jockeys in a setting that had been reserved to honor the signing of the Constitution, that featured a patriotic show with 700 performers and a speech by Burger . . . . They felt it was appropriate.”

Daniloff was flown to Florida with his family aboard a Disney corporate jet, appeared on stage to be introduced by Burger and made his first speech since being released from prison.

Many in the crowd gave him a standing ovation. Some wept when he told of his time in a KGB jail cell and when he pleaded for the freedom of Associated Press reporter Terry Anderson, who is still being held hostage in Lebanon. “As I lay on my cot, I thought about the Bill of Rights,” Daniloff said. “ . . . My heart goes out to my brother journalist Terry Anderson,” he added, voice cracking with emotion.

Just hours before, Anderson had appeared on videotape released in Beirut pleading for the United States to make the same effort to free him as it had for Daniloff.

No Photo With Mickey

At one point, the Disney employee wearing the carefully constructed Mickey Mouse costume tried to hug Daniloff--a potential front page picture in newspapers around the world. But the reporter avoided the mouse.

Nevertheless, it was clear that Mickey has come a long way since he opened on Nov. 18, 1928, at the Colony Theater on Broadway as part of a twin bill with the movie “Gang War.”

“Mickey’s a nice fellow who never does anybody any harm, who gets in scrapes through no fault of his own but always comes up grinning,” Walt Disney once said. “We thought of a tiny bit of a mouse that would have something of the wistfulness of (Charlie) Chaplin--a little fellow trying to do the best he could.”

When Mickey celebrated his 50th birthday, he traveled cross country by train on a whistle-stop tour that was was the envy of politicians. Thousands upon thousands of adults and children would be waiting even at 3 a.m.--just to say hello.

And when the Walt Disney company celebrated the 25th anniversary of its listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1982, Mickey strolled onto the trading floor to a chorus of “M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E! from stock specialists.

Some psychiatrists say Mickey Mouse is such a potent communicator because he so successfully typifies idealized childhood.

No Parents, No Sexuality

“Mickey is an idealized kid without any worries about growing up, without real parents to worry about and impinge on him, a little like Peter Pan, certainly without problems of everyday life, and certainly without sexuality,” said Dr. David Brook, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.